A blog trying to focus on all the nice things in life, those moments when everything turns out right. Finding the perfect fabric for that chart you love, the ideal sampler quote, just the right picture in all the 1000s of magazines you own. Meeting people who share your interests and obsessions and totally understand why you NEED that chart when you already have enough to last until you're 104

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Monday, 29 February 2016

Did you all enjoy your extra day today? Hope you managed to get some stitching in anyway.

I have made a good start on the third of Nora Corbett's Alphabet Fairies - E

I am stitching her on the same fabric as my J which is another Crafty Kitten 32 count Murano, this one is called Love-in-the-Mist. This is 2 day's worth of stitching:

There's quite a lot of metallic in this one and also quite a few beads. I am very interested to see how long she takes too. You would think that each fairy would take roughly the same amount of time to stitch, give or take a few days. But look at this month's Pie Chart:

Nora's S fairy was stitched up in a mere 10 days. Now this chart shows 8 days for the C fairy but she already had 14 days in January, so that's a massive 22 days in total. More than twice as long as S fairy. Now maybe I spent more time stitching each day in February but I don't think so. C was just a lot more stitching! I wonder where E will be? I intend to stitch on her as much as possible now because I do have four full days at work in the next two weeks which really reduces my stitching time to about an hour a day.

I've also been making great progress on Shepherd's Bush's Mulberry Sampler and here's the bottom portion I've been stitching the last couple of evenings:

This part is all speciality stitches, including a full 6 strands of thread couched in place. I've got another row and a half of Bargello and a row of Smyrnas and then it's on to the cutwork! I leave that until last so I don't distort that part when I continue stitching.

Isn't Bargello awesome?

I am tracking my spending this year but not with any budget in mind, just to see where it all goes!

February

Cross Stitch Crazy

£4.99

iStitch Charts x 2

£15.11

Flossaway bags

£4.05

Beads (fairies)

£7.21

Kreinik (fairies)

£6.50

Just Nan chart

£9.86

Total Spend

£47.72

I bought a single issue of Cross Stitch Crazy because there was a big article about the Stitching Out Stigma project I was involved in last year. The squares have all been made into two hangings which are being displayed in the new Mental Health Unit in University Hospital Llandough, Wales. You can see all the individual squares in the online Gallery too.

The article

and

a close-up of one of the hangings, with my square top row, second left

The iStitch charts were because Carol was having a sale so I bought two Advent Charts which one being half price. The weird price is because Carol's charts are sold in US$ so they convert to odd pence.

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Finally, it's nearly time for the Easter Blog Hoppity Hop! Taking place over the Easter weekend each participant will be allocated a letter of the alphabet which they must post along with a nice Easter or Spring themed stitched photo. In recognition of the varied talents of my followers I think you can also show any sewn, quilted or otherwise crafted Easter or Spring themed items.

Everyone will then hoppity hop around like a little fluffy bunny and collect the letters which will spell out something seasonal. If you would like to be a picture poster then please drop me an email.

If you'd like some inspiration then look at the freebies on this page of my blog - Themed Freebies

For the Hallowe'en Blog I have done something a little different this year, I've chosen a band sampler by Just Nan called Counting Bats and each band corresponds to the monthly themes on the blog. So February was Mummies and Monsters for which I stitched this Mummy:

I have chosen another series for the Christmas Ornie Blog; The Primitive Hare's Christmas Cubes. Here is R for the theme Snow:

Here's another Small I stitched for another S - Syria:

This is for the Concern Stitching for Syria project. The charity is running a Women's Centre in Lebanon and wants to make a hanging for the walls to show the women that the international stitching community is aware of their difficulties. You sign up on the website and they send you a little chart to stitch and send the square to their London office. Plenty of time to join in, the project has only just started.

This one is quite small and begins with S - Strawberry Sampler by The Sampler House. I started this as part of the DUCJC2015 and picked it up again this February.

Stitched on 32 count Antique White linen

Close-up of some of the speciality stitches.

I really like those tiny pink eyelets near the top.

The word is stitched over one.

I drew a strawberry plant in the corner of the mount so it co-ordinates with Bilberry

I chose a lighter wood for the frame. The design just fits into a standard mount too.

Yet another S finish is the one you've all been waiting for - Nora Corbett's Alphabet Fairy S:

S is only 4 inches wide compared to C's 6 inches. I think they need framing with lots of the fabric showing because it's so beautiful!

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Finally, it's nearly time for the Easter Blog Hoppity Hop! Taking place over the Easter weekend each participant will be allocated a letter of the alphabet which they must post along with a nice Easter or Spring themed stitched photo. In recognition of the varied talents of my followers I think you can also show any sewn, quilted or otherwise crafted Easter or Spring themed items.

Everyone will then hoppity hop around like a little fluffy bunny and collect the letters which will spell out something seasonal. If you would like to be a picture poster then please drop me an email.

Monday, 22 February 2016

Each month we have to share the projects we want to complete before the End Of The World.

The focus of my WIPocalypse will be my "16 in '16" which are 16 projects I particularly wanted to concentrate on in 2016. The full list can be found on my WIPocalypse page where you can also find my secondary list "16 Series in '16".

My main goal is to keep to my rotation of one small every Friday and the rest of the month working on my focus piece until it is finished. I also have a number of SALs I want to keep up with:

The Alphabet Club - a different letter on the first Saturday of each month

Gifted Gorgeousness - post anything gifted on the 15th

Hallowe'en Ornie Blog - a different spooky theme each month

Christmas Ornie Blog - a different festive theme each month

Smalls SAL - last Thursday of each month

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And now for the progress report:

So far this month I've worked on six of the main 16 and three of the series list.

7. Strawberry Sampler by The Sampler House - WIP

8. Book of Spells by The Goode Huswif - Finished

11. Elizabeth Shephard by The Scarlet Letter - WIP

I worked and finished on the motif on the far left last Friday

13. C by Nora Corbett - Finished

15. S by Nora Corbett - WIP

I am OBSESSED with this piece! I simply cannot put her down! I stitched her wing all of Sunday.

16. Counting Bats by Just Nan - WIP

And the series:

1. Christmas Cubes by The Primitive Hare - WIP

I am stitching these out of order to fit in with the themes on the Christmas Ornie blog

6. The Stitcher's Alphabet by Brooke's Books - WIP

15. Alphabet Fairies by Nora Corbett - see above.

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Measi always gives us a topic to discuss too:

February - If you have any of your pieces on display in your home which attracts the most plaudits?

I do have quite a lot of my stitching on display at home. It doesn't actually attract a lot of comments, partly because we don't have a lot of visitors these days. When the Large Boy was at Primary School we were always having coffee mornings and get-togethers but as our children have grown up we have gone back to work and have less time to meet up.

The piece which gets the most attention is Mirabilia's Bluebeard's Mermaid. Mostly because she is most visible when you enter the room. I think the problem is that the pictures I have on display are so different to the average English person's idea of cross stitch that they don't even register as stitching! The Eilean Donan Castle looks like a painting and I'm assuming they think the same of my other larger pieces.

I looked at my Happy Dance blog to see which posts there have the most visitors. The Round Robin posts are clear favourites with the most visitors. And on this blog, the Gifted Gorgeousness posts are run away winners with in excess of 1000 pages views for each one. I am guessing that people like a communal post! Either that or people usually read posts in their Readers rather than visiting the website.

Finally, I blogged about the Concern Stitching for Syria project last post. The charity is running a Women's Centre in Lebanon and wants to make a hanging for the walls to show the women that the international stitching community is aware of their difficulties. You sign up on the website and they send you a little chart to stitch and send the square to their London office.

It really is a little design, only 2.2 inches on 28 count. Although they talk about aida, this is often used as a generic term for "cross stitch fabric" in the same way "Hoover" mean "a vaccum-cleaner" and evenweave is fine. I asked!

Stitched in DMC 107

This took me about 1,5 hours stitching while the Small Boy was in the bath over the course of three evenings. So really, there's no excuse not to get involved!

Thursday, 18 February 2016

Today hubby and I are celebrating being a couple for ten years! We have lived in this house for 9.5 years, which isn't really all that long (I was in my previous house for 17 years) but it is long enough to have long-lost treasures apparently!

When we first moved in we have a piece of furniture behind the settee which I stood some stitching pictures on. As the Small Boy became more mobile and able to climb they got moved and put away. While looking for something else entirely this week I found them and this one too. I don't think I've seen this picture since we moved in, it used to be at the foot of the stairs in the old house.

The subject is Eilean Donan Castle in Scotland, a gorgeous Scottish Keep which was used in the film Highlander. I visited it back in the 1980s so when I started stitching and saw this kit I knew I had to stitch it. The design uses a mixture of one and two threads to give depth and texture to the picture.

It was one of the first pieces I got professionally framed by the lovely Ben of Frames of Norwich. The label on the back gives their address in St. Giles Street which puts this at late 1990s as he was originally somewhere else when I first used him.

Here are some close-ups:

This piece is back on the wall at home, for now! I had a little rummage around and found the original chart which is a John Clayton design called Dawn Mist at Eilean Donan. copyright 1997.

And that's when I struck stitching treasure! Because in the bag were a number of older neglected stitchings, some finished, some WIPS. Here are the photos!

A Bucilla kit called Max's Moon stitched in 2008. This was stitched on black aida using the threads supplied. The Large Boy loved cats and requested I stitch it for him. Unfortunately it never got framed. It will now, after a good iron!

A Needlepoise sampler called Bramble Harvest, stitched in the mid 1990s on 28 count evenweave. There's only one and a half bands left to do. I wonder why I stopped? I have the chart for the companion piece called Strawberry Sampler I should stitch sometime.

This is the sampler I stitched on a wonderful retreat, again back in the early 1990s. The bag it was in has a phone number for Middlesex beginning with 081 and those numbers were only used between 1990 and 1995. The design is by Jane Greenoff and is called Woodland Walk. I think it is probably OOP because the only online version I could find for this title is completely different!

The host chose this project because of the number of speciality stitches and different techniques used.

I've always been a little uncertain about the finished piece because it seems a little "empty" to me. I toyed with the idea of adding some extra motifs but never did.

Look, hardanger!

The next piece I remember buying at one of the Olympia shows in 2000. It's a Textured Treasure design called Southwest Garden by Karen E. Dudzinski. They had a hotmail email and a geocities website so rather technologically advanced for the era! Google reveals she still has a blog!

This is the cover photo which attracted me, not sure how much it would cost to cut those mounts!

And this is a close-up of one corner, sumptuous isn't it?

And the final ancient piece, the cover kit from Cross Stitch Collection issue 8!

What an exciting trawl through the past! I think my framer is going to love me. I use a lovely local lady now, she's half the price Ben was, even 15 years later! That's the city vs small town for you.

On to modern stitching now. I am speeding through Nora Corbett's S Fairy:

stitched on Oceanic Fantasia by Crafty Kitten

There's quite a bit of skin, lots of wing and another swirl at the bottom of the letter. Then Kreinik on the wings, backstitch and beads.

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Finally, I was emailed about a craftivist project recently - Stitching for Syria, Here's what the charity Concern says about their work "At Concern we run a host of activities helping Syrians caught up in years of war. These include teaching Syrian refugees and poor Lebanese women embroidery. Selling what they make gives these women a vital income, and the sessions themselves bring warmth, hope and friendship."

And here's their website to find out more - Concern. Basically, you sign up and they send you a free chart which you stitch and mail to them to make a hanging for their centre in Lebanon to bring hope to the women that go there. A donation would be nice too! It's a small pattern, only 30x30 so shouldn't take long to stitch. The project has literally only just been launched this week so needs all the publicity it can get!

Monday, 15 February 2016

Welcome to the Gifted Gorgeousness link-up post! The link-up date will continue to be the 15th of each month but I will keep the linky open until the end of each month so you have plenty of time to join in.

The format remains EXACTLY the same as last year so I'm sure you are all aware of what can be included - gifts to and from you; charts, fabric or threads; shoe-horns welcome!

I have been such a busy bee (or Gizzy Gee if we really want to keep the GG theme!) this month.

First of all I completed CCN's Poinsettia Cottage (a giveaway prize from Gaynor):

I made one or two minor changes. I used DMC 356 to backstitch the skin (it's my preferred colour for the job). I used DMC 208 for the swirls on the thing in her hand and stitched it over 1 using the chart CC. I used DMC 500 for all the other backstitch just because it looked better than brown! Brown bs for waves and a green dress? I don't think so!

And of course, one major change! I didn't stitch the square border or the filled in background. None of the other fairies have a square border and by using a beautiful hand-dyed fabric like this you don't need to stitch the background either. I extended the waves on the right and the top so they are more curved. On the original they were cut flat by the border.

I love her and I'm sure my cousin's daughter will too.

And now over to you - Here is the place for you to link up so we can see what Gifted Gorgeousness you have been stitching so far this year. Please use your name or your blog name in the field NOT the words "February Update" so I can easily see who has linked up this month.

And link to the actual post, not just your blog. It is easier if you copy and paste the link, rather than typing freehand.

Thank you. I can amend links if you make a boo-boo though.

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Finally, we have a special Giveaway this month, sponsored by the lovely Gillie from Random Thoughts from Abroad (see, no sarky nicknames when she's giving us stuff!). Last month she completed a gorgeous design by Jardin Prive:

Photo copied with Gillie's permission

All you have to do to be in with a chance to win this lovely chart is link-up for GG before the 29th of February and leave a comment saying "yes, please enter me in the draw" so it's nice and clear. You could add who you would dedicate the design to, if you have a special S in your life too. But not complusory!

If anyone feels the urge to sponsor a giveaway this year, please drop me an email. Always happy to oblige even if I can't enter myself LOL.

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About Me

I'm a stitcher from the East of England, married with two boys.
I've been stitching since 1993 and have a dated sampler to prove it! I love the cross stitch chat forums and discovered blog-stalking a while back then started one of my own.
I love to stitch fantasy themes and samplers most of all. Mirabilia, L&L, Just Nan, Joan Elliot and TW are my favourites but my ambition is to stitch a Chatelaine...one day!
edit to say - 2017 is that day! I officially started my first Chatelaine mandala on 10th February 2017.